


Doing the Right Thing

by Treon



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Episode S05E09 No Good Deed, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:23:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treon/pseuds/Treon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to 5x09.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doing the Right Thing

Neal stood by his big patio window, looking out towards the flickering lights of the city. If the city was talking to him, he wasn't listening now, his mind too troubled.  
  
Mozzie had been no help at all. He saw this new development as a positive thing. They'd been getting too close to the Suit. It was dangerous. Things were better this way.  
  
That had always been Mozzie's attitude. Relationships were trouble, friends were just an opportunity for people to stab you in the back. Better to stay away, cut ties, and be ready to run.  
  
But Neal couldn't just let it go. Peter had been so proud of him. It was praise he knew he didn't deserve, and yet he had let himself bask in it. Peter was finally trusting him.  
  
It had all been a lie, of course. He'd been conning Peter all along. Worse, he'd been conning himself. Thinking he was reformed, thinking he could be different than his father. That once he finished serving his sentence he could find a normal job and settle down.  
  
No. Peter was right. He was a criminal, and he'd never be anything else.  
  
A knock on the door broke his reverie. For a second, he thought it might be Peter. A flicker of hope that Peter had come to say that he had reconsidered. That he now understood that Neal had risked so much, only because he cared. That justice had indeed been served.  
  
But when he opened the door, it wasn't Peter standing there.  
  
"Elizabeth." Neal didn't bother hiding his surprise.  
  
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything." She picked up on his furtive glance, the unasked question on his lips. "Peter doesn't know I'm here."  
  
"I wish I could say the same," Neal smiled wryly. He considered Elizabeth for a moment. "Is everything OK?"  
  
Elizabeth nodded. "Can I come in?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah." He moved aside to let her enter. "What's up?"  
  
Elizabeth took a few steps into the apartment, then turned back to Neal. "Peter told me what happened. About the coins, what you did.." she didn't really want to spell it out, "..to make sure he's acquitted."  
  
Neal shut the door slowly, taking time to think of a response. Instead he decided to go for a neutral "Yeah?"  
  
"I told him I'd asked you to do it." She shook her head. "I can't tell you how sorry I am. I didn't want it to end this way. But Peter didn't deserve to go to jail for a crime he didn't commit. And you-"  
  
"I'm a criminal," Neal supplied.  
  
"I didn't say that."  
  
"You didn't have to."  
  
Elizabeth wasn't sure what to say. Neal was right. She had turned to him, knowing he would most probably do something that could cost him his freedom. At the time she was too desperate to care. Legal, illegal, she didn't care what Neal had to do, long as her husband was back at home, where he belonged. But now.. well, now she felt guilty. "You wouldn't have taken the blows if you felt the system failed you."  
  
When faced with injustice, with the possibility of Neal having to serve a life sentence, Peter had told him to run. Now Neal was slowly beginning to realize that Peter had different standards for himself. What was true for the criminal wasn't true for the lawman. When Peter had found himself in the almost exact same situation, Peter himself didn't run. Even now Peter didn't run. He was willing to go down for his convictions, go to jail for a crime he didn't commit.  
  
"Look, Elizabeth.." Neal wasn't in the mood for this discussion.  _He_  was the one to blame. "It's not your fault. I would have done everything I could for Peter, whether you asked me to or not. And Peter's right, I  _am_  a criminal. He-"  
  
"Neal, you did the right thing."  
  
Neal looked away, back towards the city lights. That's what he's been telling himself, but it didn't seem to help. "Peter doesn't think so."  
  
"No, he doesn't." Elizabeth had to agree. "He believes in the system, and he thought the system had worked this time. This.. all of this, is devasting for him. But I wanted you to know.. I just, I just wanted to say 'thank you'."  
  
Neal glanced back at Elizabeth. Her words had touched him more than he thought they would.  
  
"I know you risked a lot. Just like you came back when Keller abducted me."  
  
Neal brushed that off. "Peter would have never let it go if I hadn't. He'd have chased me to the ends of the earth."  
  
Elizabeth wasn't about to accept that. "But that's not the reason you came back."  
  
Neal shook his head, but Elizabeth wasn't finished. "You're a better man than you give yourself credit for. You did the right thing."  
  
"As a criminal."  
  
"As a friend." Elizabeth reached out to give Neal's arm a short squeeze. "Thanks."


End file.
